


Spaghetti Hamburgers

by 8sword



Series: His Fucking Kids [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dad!Dean, Episode: s04e20 The Rapture, Episode: s07e13 The Slice Girls, M/M, Parents Castiel & Dean Winchester, Protective Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Time Travel, dad!Cas, parenting, stepsisters!Claire and Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:17:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel would like to have a peaceful Monday night rather than one in which Emma sulks in her bedroom with her iPod blaring and Dean sulks in the garage with his record player blaring and Castiel and Claire are left to share an awkward silence in the living room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spaghetti Hamburgers

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting this installment that was posted alongside the first chapter originally.

            "Honey, I'm home!" accompanies the sound of the front door opening and keys jangling their way into the bowl in the front hall. Castiel "hmm"s an absent greeting, squinting through his reading glasses at the e-mail one of his TAs just sent him, until a palm lands on his shoulder. It presses down, sweeps down the line of Castiel's clavicle over his shirt to close around his loosened tie, one of the many Emma gave him for Christmas.

            "So I had an awesome idea," Dean says into his ear. His breath is warm and smells of the apple-flavored candies he sucks on in the afternoons at the garage. "What say we ditch the girls to order pizza and head to the Regal?"

            Castiel tilts his head so that Dean's mouth can better reach the skin beneath his collar. "There's a film you wish to see?"

            Dean's lip travels down, from Castiel's tragus down to the angle of his jaw. "More like there's a new Disney movie out, and since no respectable parent takes their kids to the movies on a Monday night we'll have the whole theatre to ourselves."

            It sounds very appealing. Except... Castiel reaches a hand up to Dean's shoulder. "We're watching J.B. for Sam and Amelia tonight."

            Dean goes still. Lets his head flop down onto Castiel's shoulder. "Shit, I forgot."

            "Clearly," Castiel says wryly, then nuzzles Dean's head with his chin, trying to indicate that he may resume his earlier activities involving Castiel's neck. Dean bolts upright instead, hand hastily patting his jacket pocket for his keys. "Crap, was I supposed to pick him up from school? It's way past four, he's gonna be freaking out--"

            Castiel catches Dean's belt loops as he takes off for the door. He pushes his knee just so behind Dean's so that Dean's leg gives out and he stumbles backward, onto the desk chair and Castiel. "Dude, Cas," he complains, and tries to pull free, but Castiel still has his fingers hooked through his belt loops; Dean isn't going anywhere. "I love you, too, man, but I gotta go get J.B. before his teacher freaks and calls Sam--"

            "The girls volunteered to pick him up," Castiel says.

            Dean stops struggling. Wriggles around to look at him as the chair squeaks warningly beneath them. "Uh huh."

            "I may have agreed to let them take my car."

            Dean rolls his eyes. "Then of course they volunteered," he mutters. Claire has had her license for two months now, Emma has had her permit for one, and Dean and Cas have discussed fixing up one of Bobby's old cars for them to drive so that they can stop begging Cas to let them drive his, since no way are they putting a hand on Dean's baby before they've had at _least_ three years of driving experience. ("And that's _human_  years, Emma," he'd said when Emma opened her mouth.) "Which one's driving?"

            "I did not ask," Castiel says serenely, because if Dean thinks that Emma is the one driving, he will fret and maybe even take the Impala to follow them home to make sure nothing happens, which will frustrate Emma, who will in turn lash out at Dean, and Castiel would like to have a peaceful Monday night rather than one in which Emma sulks in her bedroom with her iPod blaring and Dean sulks in the garage with his record player blaring and Castiel and Claire are left to share an awkward silence in the living room.

            "Hmph," says Dean, and pulls out his phone.

            Castiel eyes it as Dean pulls up Emma's number. "If she _is_ the one driving, you should not distract them from the road by calling her."

            "If she's driving she knows to let Claire answer the phone for her," Dean counters, and brings the phone to his ear.

            Castiel leans in, breathing out ever so faintly against Dean's earlobe. Dean shivers, shoulder hitching up for the briefest moment, and in that moment, Castiel slips his phone from his hand.

            "Wha--Cas!"

            Dean's head snaps around; he looks at Cas with wide eyes that quickly narrow. Castiel just smiles at him, holding the phone to his own ear, the one further from Dean. "Perhaps you should let me ask whatever question you wanted answered."

            Dean huffs something that sounds like "dick," but turns to make himself more comfortable, draping an arm over the back of the chair and digging his chin into Castiel's shoulder, which brings him close enough to hear through the earpiece. He knows it, too, if the little  _so there_ smirk he gives Castiel is any indication, but Castiel learned a long time ago that when it comes to Dean, he has to pick his battles.

            The ringing on the other end of the phone cuts off abruptly, is replaced by the sound of laughter and loud music that is quickly turned down. "Hello?"

            "Emma," Castiel says. "It is Cas." Belatedly, he adds, "tiel."

            Emma snickers at the same time Dean snorts against Castiel's shoulder. "No duh, Cas," he mutters as Emma says, "Yeah, Cas, I know it's you, you're the only person with a sex operator voice who calls my phone."

            Castiel is not quite sure how to respond to this, hears Claire's voice in the background saying, "That's a lie, I call you all the time," and two bursts of laughter, and in their midst, J.B.'s voice saying warily, "Is this one of those things Dad said I'm not allowed to ask about?"

            When the laughter on the other end of the line has died down enough for him to be heard, Castiel says, "Emma." He hesitates, immediately hears the tone of the silence on the other end shift. Emma is like her father that way, always expecting the worst.

            "Wait a second," she says suddenly, before he can continue. Her voice is taut now, tension replacing the amusement. "Did you call to see which of us was driving? Oh my God, Dad put you up to this, didn't he? Claire's the one driving, jeez, I'm not going to drive on my month-old permit when my kid cousin's in the car, Cas, why can't he stop assuming I'm an  _idiot_ \--"

            "Emma."

            She breaks off.

             "I was calling to ask if I left my cell phone in the car. I appear to have misplaced it."

            "...oh." Emma's voice is short, and mortified in the way he only recognizes because Emma gets mortified the same way Dean does: with gruffness and clipped words. "Uh, we'll look for it."

            "Thank you," Castiel says, and pushes away his own feelings of guilt at the deception to raise a  _do you see_  eyebrow at Dean. Dean's gaze skitters away, his jaw tightening. His chin digs harder into Castiel's shoulder as he stares at the wall over Castiel's shoulder, but Castiel doesn't think he realizes he's doing it, nor that he's letting out the tight breath that touches the back of Castiel's neck. "We will see you soon."

            "Wait!" comes a voice through the phone. It's J.B.'s; apparently Emma has handed the phone off. "Uncle Cas, can you make hamburgers for dinner?"

            Castiel can't help smiling at this, and nor, he sees, can Dean, at whose lips a faint smile is now tugging despite the crease of his brow. Sam's son loves red meat with a passion that delights Dean, and his favorite food after Claire's cinnamon rolls are the hamburgers Castiel learned to make on the grill Dean bought them for Father's Day last year.

            But a voice intercedes before he can say  _of course._  Emma's, saying, "Sorry, kiddo, no can do. Mondays are spaghetti nights."

            "But!" J.B. whines.

            "Dude, we have like three leftover hamburgers in the fridge," Emma's voice says, still distant and tinny in the background. "You can have one of those."

            "But I want them fresh!" J.B. protests. "It's not fair, Emma, you get to eat Uncle Cas's burgers whenever you want, I only get them _sometimes_!"

            "Claire, you gonna help me out with this?" Emma's voice demands. "I'm sticking up for your spaghetti rights here."

            Because spaghetti is Claire's favorite dinner, has been since before...well, everything. Castiel remembers that much from his vessel, remembers Amelia making it on Monday nights with special meatballs because she said Mondays were hard days and spaghetti and meatballs was a good way to make a hard day special. Castiel had forgotten that, and he feels cowed, now, guilty that he did not take it into consideration in his eagerness to please Sam's son.

            "Hang on." Dean sits up, pushing away from Castiel's shoulder to take the phone. "I have an awesome idea." He meets Cas's eyes, and his gaze is understanding and tender and protective and excited all at once as he pushes a hand through Castiel's hair. "Two words: spaghetti hamburgers."

            There's a moment of silence. Then a chorus of gagging noises and " _Ew_ , Uncle Dean" and Dean grins, pulls his hand through Castiel's hair to cup the back of his head, says, "Fine, you losers, then get home and you can have soggy leftovers," and hangs up, and pulls Castiel's head back to kiss him. 

            "We're doing okay," he murmurs a few minutes later, or maybe Castiel murmurs it to him, but either way, maybe they are. Because when the key scrapes in the front door and footsteps tromp inside, J.B. comes stomping into the kitchen to show Uncle Cas how his new shoes light up when he steps and Claire smiles at Castiel from behind him and Emma's got the Piggly-Wiggly bag, and she plunks a box of spaghetti noodles and a bag of frozen meatballs and a package of hamburger buns down on the counter next to where Dean's got mac'n cheese fixings out, and she sort of half-glares up at him and says, "You weren't joking, right?"

            Dean stares at her a minute, and then breaks into a grin the beauty of which Castiel can still taste along his teeth. "Kiddo," he says, "I never joke about food."

 

 


End file.
